Electronic displays have become useful for not only indoor entertainment purposes, but are now being utilized for indoor and outdoor advertising/informational purposes. For example, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), plasma displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and many other flat panel displays are now being used to display information and advertising materials to consumers in locations outside of their own home and/or within airports, arenas, stadiums, restaurants/bars, gas station pumps, billboards, and even moving displays on the tops of automobiles or on the sides of trucks. In some cases, the electronic display is hard wired to the source of the video signal. In other instances, hard wiring the signal transmission for these devices would either be cost-prohibitive or impossible due to the nature of the mounting surface or surrounding environment and in some cases the fact that the display is attached to a moving vehicle. Thus, the video data for some of these displays must be transmitted wirelessly.
Furthermore, the popularity of high-definition television (HDTV) has created a demand for high-quality video and picture displays where previously a lower quality would suffice. A high-quality video signal typically contains a larger amount of data and thus poses additional problems based on the bandwidth available for transmission.
Another problem in transmitting this data is the risk of unintentional or intentional interference with the data transmission by a third party. For example, although the user has sent intended data to the displays, a third party may interject their own data and attempt to transmit alternative and possibly offensive material to the displays. These third parties may interject with wired setups by locating the source of the video, disconnecting it, and attaching their own source to send to the displays. In wireless applications, third parties may wirelessly send their own signals to receivers and override the intended signals. Therefore, there exists a need to securely transmit high-quality image data to electronic displays in both wired and wireless applications.
Exemplary embodiments provide a system and method for securely transmitting video data to an electronic display. The video data may be transmitted using a wired or wireless application. Raw video data may be encoded as a plurality of frames. One or more packets may be created which may contain one frame or a portion of a frame of video. Each packet may contain a unique header with information about the packet and possibly a unique security key. After transmission various properties of each packet may be analyzed to determine if they are acceptable (i.e. was it the intended transmission, was it transmitted properly, etc.). The packets may be re-assembled and displayed if they are the intended transmission. A default image, default video, or previously accepted frame may be displayed if a packet is not transmitted properly or the received packet is not the intended transmission. If a single packet is missing or is unintended then the frame is likely incomplete and the previous frame may be repeated. Additional standard wireless encryption may also be used if utilizing a wireless application.
Alternatively, a pair of packets (primary and redundant) may be created from the frame and transmitted together so that if a primary packet is rejected (for any number of reasons), the system could analyze the redundant packet and use the redundant packet (if acceptable). It has been found that this alternative embodiment can provide a stream of data to displays that is very reliable (98% transmission or better) and rarely results in any interruption of the video (and sometimes audio signal).
The exemplary embodiments herein disclosed are not intended to be exhaustive or to unnecessarily limit the scope of the invention. The exemplary embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principles so that others skilled in the art may practice the embodiments. Having shown and described exemplary embodiments, those skilled in the art will realize that many variations and modifications may be made to affect the described invention. Many of those variations and modifications will provide the same result and fall within the spirit of the exemplary embodiments. It is the intention, therefore, to limit the embodiments only as indicated by the scope of the claims.